There are many pinnacle moments for a dad during pregnancy. Finding out your going to be a dad is amazing but seeing your baby moving around on the screen for the first time truly rocks your world. And yes I cried again.

After an initial rocky start the next 6 weeks have flown by. Today we had are first official scan at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI). The LGI doesn’t have an early pregnancy unit so all the people in the waiting room were a little more cheerful and excited than at our earlier scans (see here).

After about 15 minutes we were led into the scanning room and Fiona climbed upon the couch. Fiona has asked me to mention the jelly here (she must be obeyed) so… after hitching up her top and lowering her trousers to expose her mid drift a large quantity of jelly was placed on her belly. Fiona reckons they put it in the freezer as a joke but I’m pretty sure that’s not true. The jelly is applied so they can get a good contact on the belly and move the scanner around without causing any friction etc. (I bet you think I know what I’m on about, but really I’m guessing).

The scan began and after a few tweaks there on the screen is our baby Spud (explained here.) I had seen pictures of 12 week scans in various books and kind of knew what to expect but oh my god I was blown away. You see, in a book you see a black and white picture of a crudely drawn mini baby. In reality this crudely drawn mini baby moves around, has fingers and toes, stretches and does a lot of things we all do like waving.

It moved! Did you see? There it goes again.

I know I probably said in a previous post that seeing the little flashing line at our 6 week scan made it all seem so real but the 12 week scan truly cements it. I have never been as happy in my life as I was at this moment and I’m sure it will get better and better. Bring on fatherhood.

Oh advice, I keep forgetting to give advice. Well scan people (woohoo that’s technical) like your partner to be desperate for a pee when they do the scan so get her to drink lots of fluids before the scan which inflates the bladder and pushes the baby closer to the front of the belly. There is normally a toilet very close by for use after. Oh and get a print out if you can.